Rooney record ‘an incredible achievement’, beams Mourinho

Rooney’s magnificent dinked finish from Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s through ball for United’s first-half opener, made him the club’s all-time leading scorer in Europe with 39 – ahead of Ruud van Nistelrooy – and put him now just one behind Sir Bobby Charlton’s overall club record of 249 goals.

Never mind the novelty of seeing Henrikh Mkhitaryan on Manchester United’s wing, the sights that had Old Trafford rubbing its eyes in disbelief were a third game in a row for Michael Carrick and what looked suspiciously like Wayne Rooney proving his critics wrong.

But, making his first start since that derby game, Mkhitaryan delivered a reminder of his quality in United’s 4-0 win over Feyenoord on Thursday night.

“It [Rooney’s record] is an unbelievable achievement and will be even better if he can help bring to the club the only competition never won in their history”, said Mourinho.

Feyenoord boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst expects a far different Manchester United team to the one they beat in September. It would be fantastic if I could win it.

United reached nine points and is only one behind Group A leader Fenerbahce, which defeated Ukraine’s Zorya Luhansk 2-0 in Turkey.

Aside from a spectacular effort to tip a Juan Mata chip over the crossbar, Jones failed to prevent Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard breaching his Dutch club’s defence. “If we get a win on Thursday, I think we’ll then be in a good position to go on and win the group”.

“It’s a great feeling to score goals and to score goals for this club”.

Mourinho also praised Mkhitaryan’s performance after the game and thinks his next challenge has got to be trying to produce a similar display in the Premier League.

“He just needs now to replicate this kind of performance in the Premier League”, said Mourinho.

Hailed as one of the signings of the summer following his £26.3m switch from Borussia Dortmund, the Armenia worldwide found himself completely out of the first-team picture after being hooked off at half-time on his full debut against Manchester City.

After another disappointing result at the weekend, when they gave away a late goal to Arsenal, Manchester United needed a win to lift Old Trafford again, and it came via the man who has inspired the home crowd time and again in the past.

A second was coming and it duly arrived with an impressive team goal 21 minutes from time.